Submitted by the MVCAC VVBD Committee
CA Pruszynski, HL Murray, SE Faucett. 2026. Wing Beats 27: 28-30.
Authors’ Quick Overview: Wolbachia is a naturally occurring intracellular bacterium found in half of insect species worldwide, but it is not naturally present in Ae. aegypti (Weinert et al. 2015, Hoffmann et al. 2024). When non-biting male Ae. aegypti infected with Wolbachia are released and mate with wild, uninfected females, the resulting eggs fail to hatch due to cytoplasmic incompatibility.
Results: Data was not presented. The authors reported: “Adult Ae. aegypti abundance at the Middle Keys release site was 53% lower than at the paired control site (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.32–0.71). In Key Largo, adult Ae. aegypti abundance at the release site was 46% lower than at the control site (IRR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.34–0.86). However, adult Ae. aegypti abundance did not differ between the release and control sites in Plantation Key (IRR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.61–1.61)”.
Note: The authors claim to have measured the frequency of females mating with released males, but these results were not summarized in this short report. Oviposition cup sampling was reportedly not successful.